


you are part of my existence, part of myself

by crownuponherhead



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Relationships, F/M, Jon and the Starks Are Not Related, Sansa Centric, sansa is embodying family duty honor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 07:03:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18425337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownuponherhead/pseuds/crownuponherhead
Summary: When Jon sees her eyes at the table that morning looking over his research on the Kings of the North, he takes the keys instead and drives them both. And when she cries on the way home he holds her hand.“I shouldn’t be crying, I’m not his mother. I’m just his big sister.” She gets it out in hiccups once they reach the house.“You aren’t his mother, but you did raise him. Of course, you’re crying and it’s okay if it’s not just for you.”





	you are part of my existence, part of myself

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt on tumblr: you are part of my existence, part of myself
> 
> hope u like it!!

When her mother had announced she was having another baby Sansa was fourteen and disgusted and a little bit starry-eyed about it.  Disgusted that her parents were still close in that way, but also starry-eyed for the same reason. Sure they’d had Bran only a few years ago, but she’d still been young then ten years was a significant difference, but fourteen was even bigger. Not to mention the sixteen year difference with Robb.  When her mother died less than a year after giving birth to Rickon when she was essentially a mother at fifteen. Her father, as much as she loved him, could he really handle a baby, a five year old, a thirteen year old, a fifteen year old, and a seventeen year old? Even with a Nanny, and the Gods bless Osha, it was overwhelming. Sansa, and Robb truly as the only one out of the two of them who could drive felt as if they were always on the go. As soon as she was sixteen her life became a routine, Robb and Arya always had their activities, so she would drive home put Rickon in the stroller and walk up to get Bran from school that was only a few blocks away from home. Anytime she felt overwhelmed she’d look at her mother’s old necklace that always was resting on her chest; family duty honor. 

 

At sixteen she also met Joffrey, suddenly her routine included not only trying to raise her siblings but to be the perfect girlfriend. It only took a few months, after Robb had gone off to university in White Harbor and Joffrey wasn’t as scared before he started hitting her. She was seventeen and her routine consisted of giving herself enough time in the morning to cover up bruises and trying to convince a now talking Rickon that she was not the ghost in the picture that was their mother. At seventeen she finally met the illustrious Jon that both Robb and Arya had never shut up about. Not how either of them probably would have liked to meet though. 

 

It was a rare night out using the fake id she’d wasted money on, letting herself just be young and have fun. Well as fun as she could have when at Joffrey’s side. His hand was bruising her waist and she wanted nothing more than to run away from the drunken darkness that was approaching from her boyfriend. She met Jon Snow when he pulled a drunk Joffrey off her where he’d pinned her to a wall and she had no way to yell for help. Robb running up behind him was the only way they’d realized they knew who the other was. 

 

It’s later that night sitting in the living room after they’d taken pictures of her bruises that she finally finds her manners.  

 

“We didn’t really get to actually meet each other earlier,” She starts offering a glass of water and a slice of the pizza they’d picked up on the way back home, as she sat down next to him. “I’m Sansa.” 

 

She watches as he takes the slice and water giving her a barely-there smile. “Jon.” 

 

“Thank you for saving me, Jon.” She hears him mumble something in response and sees the hint of a pinkish blush on his cheeks, however, she chooses to ignore it just sits next to him and eats her own pizza as Robb comes back in the room joining them on the couch. 

 

Suddenly Jon Snow was a part of her world, for some reason she wouldn’t have it any other way. He was brooding but smart and the boys loved him as well when he’d come home with Robb. Her dad, she’s sure would have tried to adopt him if he hadn’t already been an adult. And somehow even though this was supposed to be a break for him from school he seemed to always be trying to give her a break. 

 

She’s eighteen, planning Rickon’s third birthday party and her plans for now that she’s graduated when a detective knocks at the door. She’s eighteen, planning her father’s funeral. 

 

Her sketchbooks get long forgotten, her sewing machine stops. Suddenly her and Robb are both in charge of a sixteen year old, a eight year old, and a three year old. 

 

But, Robb’s only a year out from his degree and then a year law program and he can officially take his father’s place firm. So she presses pause on that dream she had of designing dresses that would grace the runways of the country. Instead, she gets her certification as a seamstress and starts working with a local Tailor in town as well as local boutiques.  She feels as if her life is just full of running. She’s running after the boys, running from her demons, running from her past. 

 

She doesn’t stop sketching, but the sketches end up a little stained with yogurt from Rickon’s lunches or paint from Bran’s school projects. Bran’s easier to take care of, or raise if she admitted it was what she was doing, he remembers their mother and father, more their father than mother. Rickon just remembers that he had them and that father wouldn’t come back. 

 

It doesn’t feel as if a year has passed but it has and suddenly it’s not just Robb moving back into the house but Jon Snow moves into the guest room, paying rent even if Robb keeps grumbling that he doesn’t need to. While Robb went on to work on his law degree at the university in Wintertown, Jon was in their postgraduate History programs. Suddenly dinners are more full in Winterfell again. Books are piled on the tables typically,  law from Robb, history from Jon, Bran has a new fascination with Space and has checked every possibly book out from the library in his reading level, Arya well she isn’t ever reading at the table but she typically leaves a field hockey tool at the ground behind her, Rickon has taken to bringing coloring books to fit in and she’s even found herself sketching again. 

 

And the thing is, Jon Snow once again is giving her more breaks. She hasn’t forgotten how he saved her that night not so long ago. But she’ll find that he’ll make sure to get reading done around the boys to help them. Letting her have a break or just making sure she has adult conversation. Makes sure that she’ll see old friends or just continue to give her that adult conversation.

 

She’s almost expecting him to move out when he gets his Master’s in History but he doesn’t mumble something about his Ph.D. still at Winterfell as they celebrate his and Robb’s success in a party. 

 

She cries when she gets Rickon ready for his first day of school, he’s excited bouncing off the walls but she cries. When Jon sees her eyes at the table that morning looking over his research on the Kings of the North, he takes the keys instead and drives them both. And when she cries on the way home he holds her hand. 

 

“I shouldn’t be crying, I’m not his mother. I’m just his big sister.” She gets it out in hiccups once they reach the house. 

 

“You aren’t his mother, but you did raise him. Of course, you’re crying and it’s okay if it’s not just for you.” 

 

And with Robb’s long hours they fall into a routine, helping the boys until they get to bed, she does all the creative things for Bran’s projects and he helps academically. With Rickon in school, she lets herself enroll in a few classes and she finds herself sitting with Jon in his little office he’s granted use of as a TA and a graduate student. She gets school work done and helps him with lectures at times before she has to leave to get Bran and Rickon. She takes on a few more hours working and finds herself the go-to alterations person for the local wedding dress shops. 

 

Then Arya’s graduation approaches she cries again watching as her little sister gets in a car with her ‘friend’ Gendry and takes time for herself. She’s jealous but happy that her sister can go and just live and be. She’s happy she’ll explore the world. 

 

But it reminds her that the whole world has gone on without her when Robb brings home Jeyne. She calls Osha, who's still around but not as full time, they can’t really afford that luxury anymore. And she lets herself go out, she drinks with a few old friends and lets herself go dancing but she stumbles into the living room and Jon’s waiting up for her on the couch still. She finds herself just drawn to sit next to him. So she does, and she falls asleep on his shoulder not long after but wakes up tucked in her bed with a glass of water and Advil on her bedside table with a note that says just in case in his familiar chicken scratch. 

 

It’s only when he asks her to do the sketches for his dissertation that she notices the shift between them. She’s sketching landscapes, battle plans, crests, crowns, gowns, and castles based on his words and his research. She’s sitting a little closer to him and the touches last a little longer. Hearing praise of her work from Jon, from his advisors, and even complete strangers it gives her and energy she hadn’t felt in a long time. After picking up Rickon and Bran from school she drives to the fabric store and by the end of the night, she’s working on sewing old sketches she’d put away thinking that was gone. 

 

She keeps them hidden though, for all of the age of twenty two they stay in her closest, it’s not until Jon asks her to come with him to a party he’d been invited to from his advisor and colleagues she pulls one out. It’s a black velvet dress with soft silver-grey embroidery of wolves and wildflowers along the turtleneck collar.

 

“What do you think?” She asks a bit nervously when she walks into the kitchen. He’s dressed but helping Rickon with his reading for the night, Osha having just gotten there and was settling in with the boys. Robb was piled to the brim with casework as the junior partner, they were lucky to see him leave the office before 9 most nights. 

 

She felt his eyes rake over her and despite the intimacy of it, she didn’t object to the look. 

 

“I like the wolf bits,”  His little grin is enough to bring one to her lips. It only takes 15 minutes for them to get out the door, record time if you asked her. 

 

She enjoys the night, his hand started on her lower back and as drinks were shared ended up around her waist. She notices he doesn’t correct when people call her his girlfriend, she doesn’t either though. And it seems to make sense that they must all think she was for much longer than just tonight. She doesn’t hate it though, she finds herself leaning into his hold as the night goes on. 

 

She turns twenty three and walks in the house from a final fitting of a wedding dress she’d altered, ironically to a girl she used to sit next to in classes years ago, to find the lights all turned off. No one answers her as she calls out making her way towards the living room. Her heart races and it’s not until the lights flick on and everyone is yelling surprise at her that she calms down. Rickon runs into her arms and she picks him up with ease feeling herself come back to earth from her panic. Her brothers are all hugging her and even Arya and Gendry have made their way up for it, something that had surprised her after millions of letters home saying they wouldn’t be making it home for Christmas this year. Her eyes meet Jon’s though whose standing at the edge of the chaos with a shy grin on his face. That in itself is a rarity she feels honored to be on the receiving end of. And later on, once they’ve finally gotten the sugared up kids to fall asleep and everyone’s trying to clean the messes that were made before bed, Jon pulls her away from the crowd that has become the kitchen Robb and Arya both in there with their respective partners.

 

“What?” She sounds breathless, she feels breathless as they stop in Jon’s room. She’s not in here often, the old guest room that had once been sort of a playground of sorts when they were young. It’s not been a guest bedroom for what feels like forever. But she’s standing here with Jon, he’d only just dropped his hold on her hand and is asking her to close her eyes. 

 

She does of course, but she’s still confused. And when he places something in her hands, it feels like a frame she can’t help but feel more confused. 

 

“Happy Birthday, Sansa. You can open your eyes.” She does at his words, they’re standing so close together she can practically feel the words come out of his mouth. However, her eyes are caught on the image in the frame. It’s part of her own sketch, he’d asked her to try and sketch what the full tapestry of Queen with a Direwolf and Dragon could have looked like. Except its not all her work, the Queen in the image looks more like her, more detailed than her sketch was.  “I, uh, really liked your work for this one and thought that you deserved to be shown in that way, you’ve done everything for your family. My friend Sam’s fiancé, Gilly, knew a girl who does that kinda stuff online.” 

“Jon,” She does love it, her heart is beating a thousand beats a minute and her hand keeps going over the beauty of it. Pressing the frame close to her she looks up to meet his eyes and just erupts in a grin before pressing her lips to his cheek. “I love it more than any gift I’ve ever been given before.” And it feels a bit too intimate for this level of conversation to be holding onto each other as they are but neither of them changes it. 

 

Something, even more, has shifted because for the first time Jon doesn’t leave for Christmas. She’s not sure if it’s his own choice or if it’s Rickon’s begging but instead Lyanna Snow joins them for the holidays and it’s so relaxing to have a mother there even if she’s a guest that Sansa feels like she can breathe again through the large dinner that everyone gathers at with distant family still coming to check in on them as they have done since she herself was a baby. It’s having someone else’s wisdom and sound mind keeping the magic alive for the boys, well for Rickon, but it’s enough that she feels like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders. And it feels easy to be around everyone on Christmas morning. So easy that as she leans her head on Jon’s shoulder both yawning from the lack of sleep they got from wrapping presents, she lets herself relax. 

 

February is busier than she ever expected a month with only 28 days to be. Rickon’s taken up football and as much as she loves him, it’s incredibly hard for her to get the work she needs to get done while sitting in the stands watching six to eight year olds kick around a ball on a field. She’d never admit that out loud though. Instead, she starts sketching out from the stands and sometimes getting her reading or homework done. She could finish her degree in a year if she really tried, she isn’t so sure if it was smart to just get a fashion business degree but it seemed better than no degree.  And then there’s the fact that every day of the 28 days were not only leading up to March but Jon’s defense for his Ph.D. With the number of times she heard it as March 1st approaches, she thinks that she could give it. Jeyne offers to get the boys from school so Sansa drives them to the university.

 

“You’re going to do amazing, you’re going to walk out of there Dr. Jon Snow, I just know it.” He’s in his best suit and she can’t help but admit to herself that he looks incredibly handsome in it as well.  She’d made his tie herself and as he gives her a worried smile she wraps her arms around him tightly. “I believe in you, I’ll be right out here.” And with that she watches him disappear in the room for two hours. 

 

When he walks out with examiners everyone is a buzz, his advisor recognizes her and waves her over but she barely sees it as Jon’s smiling at her and suddenly in a very unprofessional way his lips are on hers. It’s only for a brief kiss but enough to make them both look at each other in surprise but pure joy. 

 

And when they finally escape the celebrations from his professors and make it to the car, she finds herself being backed against the car for a celebratory make-out sesh with admissions hung in the air between them.  “I’ve wanted to kiss you since the night we met.” “You don’t know how long I wish you would have,” “This can’t change anything,” 

 

“I love you,” 

 

“And I love you,” 

 

She expects it to be hard to explain to Rickon, she feels like everything is hard for her to explain to Rickon, but it isn’t. He simply looks at them confused and says he thought they were together already. Bran is especially happy, even hugs her before he leaves to hang out with his friends saying that their parents would have loved it. Arya doesn’t object but she doesn’t say she’s happy, but Gendry is high fiving Jon and they’re both talking excitedly that she thinks it’s okay. Robb takes it the hardest. He sees his best friend and his little sister still as he always has. Jon is the guy he roomed with his first year of uni and Sansa still has her hair in pigtails. He talks of betrayal and how he feels blindsided. She thinks it might have cut a deep wound if she hadn’t snapped about how she felt alone and blindsided by life until Jon came into the picture. She doesn’t blame Robb for not being there every second. She told him to keep doing what he was doing, that if they could keep life as normal as possible they would. It makes her brother think though. She understands that he hadn’t been able to before but finally as the partner of the firm she’s happy to see his hours cut back and them all together. 

 

Jon becomes a professor at the school later that year. While they don’t have to stop their relationship after all his entire department thinks she’s been his girlfriend for a long time, they have to be careful until her degree is done. It’s that fall at one of Rickon’s matches that they get called his parents. She’s of course been called Rickon’s mum for years before someone would make the mistake known very quietly and when he was a toddler it took him so long to realized his mummy died and Sansa was just his sister but it’s the first time Jon’s been brought into it. She supposes it’s because of how she’s excitedly fretting over him and Jon’s got him on his shoulders but the comment of how her family is so cute from a woman who sits on the stands next to her rooting for the other team sends her reeling. They really are one, aren’t they? It’s the first time she thinks back to Jon’s words, that she isn’t Rickon’s mother but they’re a family, her family, everything in her life has been to make the world better for them. 

 

“I thought you didn’t like it when people called you my mum?” Rickon questioned as they walked back to the car and Jon gives her look that she knows means that he couldn’t help her out if she tried. 

 

“I don’t, but she just said I have a cute family and I do.” She reaches up on her toes to ruffle Rickon’s hair and presses a kiss to Jon’s cheek. 

 

Lyanna joins them again for Christmas and this time she feels as if it’s something she can look forward to for years to come. And at Christmas when Robb proposes to Jeyne she realizes how fast time has flown by. 

 

She’s twenty four and her sister tells her she’s pregnant. Sansa feels as if it’s a deja vu moment to ten years prior but she’s crying and hugging her baby sister. Most of all thankful it means she and Gendry will be around Wintertown more and doing less backpacking and odd jobs. She’s helping plan a wedding, there’s a baby on the way, and soon she’ll walk across that stage and get her degree. 

 

“Do you think that’ll be us one day?” She asks later that night as she’s curled against Jon in bed, her head resting on his chest. 

 

“Yeah, I know it. One day I’ll get down on one knee for you and one day we’ll be telling them all that you’re having our baby. One day it will be us. 

 

When she has it, of course, it feels like an accomplishment running into Jon’s arms after the ceremony and planting one on his lips much to the chorus of yucks from Rickon and Robb. It just feels so right as if everything is falling into place. Yet that scares her all in the same breath. Arya gives birth by the end of the summer and they’re planning a spring wedding she barely has time to remember that things are working out. There’s a nine almost ten year old to take care of and Bran is looking at universities, albeit a bit early if you’re asking her. Sansa finds herself just wanting to coo over her baby niece, and keep her family together. But Robb’s moving in with Jeyne and Arya and Gendry have plans to move into a loft in town. She finally feels it’s time to switch things up in the house, they’ve grown enough. It’s how she redecorates and finds her and Jon moved into the old master bedroom. 

 

And while still full of people the house feels a little empty, so when Rickon brings home a stray puppy that's pitch white with red eyes and looks abandoned by his litter both her and Jon say yes without a second thought. 

 

Robb and Jeyne are married in the spring and it’s beautiful and leaves her breathless but missing her parents. She dances with Jon and they talk about everything under the sun, expect their future. A silent agreement that it was talk that didn’t belong at the wedding. 

 

She’s twenty five but she doesn’t feel as if life has gone as fast as it has. She still feels like the girl who unexpectedly started raising her younger siblings ten years ago. It scares her that now she can just ask Bran and Rickon to behave when she and Jon go out for a quick date night. They’ve grown though, so has she. It’s that realization that leads her to start her own business, suddenly people are buying her dresses and she finds buyers asking for her dresses in bulk. When she befriends Margaery Tyrell and her little dress business turns into high class people she sees in the magazines ordering her dresses. She feels as if she’s made it. She’s happy, she’s successful, she’s in love, and she has her family. 

 

“I used to want a big wedding, tons of people, big gown, a huge party.” She’s working away at a wedding dress in the living room as Jon grades students papers. Rickon’s out running laps around Ghost in the backyard and Bran at the movies with his friends, it was quiet when he’d asked how she wanted to get married. “Now, though I think I’d want something simple. A small ceremony surrounded by our family and friends, maybe out in the woods, but something intimate. I don’t need to prove to the world that I’m happy.”  She turns around from where she’d been working at the embroidery in a part facing away from him. Jon’s on one knee now instead and he’s got a simple but gorgeous ring in his hand. 

 

“Do you want to get married in a small ceremony surrounded by our family and friends where it’s just us against the world?” 

 

“Jon,” She breathes out before sinking down to her knees across from him. “You are part of my existence, part of myself, I can’t imagine doing this without you anymore, yes.” 

 

It’s a few weeks to Christmas and her birthday just passed this last weekend.  She’s twenty six and she’s getting married today. She made her own dress, she feels as if she’s barely planned, she isn’t stressed at all. The only thing she feels is joy and as she walks down the makeshift aisle that their under 50 guests have made, she only has eyes for Jon and he only has eyes for her. But at twenty six she’s starry eyed for the future and she’s marrying the love of her life, things finally feel like she did it. 

**Author's Note:**

> hi i wrote this instead of doing the 7 assignments i need to do, so likely if you're reading this i'm still up doing my school work sos to that. i kept having this idea of sansa raising rickon...idk why maybe i like pain??? je ne sais pas my dude. i hope ya'll don't think robb sucks tried v hard to make it where it was sansa like no u got his go live ur dreams. 
> 
> also...that queen with direwolf and dragon is supposed to be like the lady and the unicorn aka my FAVORITE piece of art i have been blessed to see with my own eyes.
> 
> that's all, thank u for reading ily.


End file.
